Many hearing-aid wearers want to conceal their hearing impairment. Obviously, manual control of the hearing aid should therefore be as inconspicuous as possible. Depending on circumstances, this may also be of relevance for other kinds of hearing devices. At the same time, many hearing-device wearers have difficulties with sight and with precise operation of their fingers, which hinder them in operating small control elements on the hearing devices or on remote controls.
In the art, hearing devices are known which comprise capacitive sensors that allow the wearer to control the operation of the devices. Such sensors either operate as touch sensors detecting when an object, such as the wearer's finger, touches the sensor surface, or as proximity sensors detecting when the wearer's hand is within a specific range of the sensor surface.
For many hearing-device wearers, establishing physical contact between a finger and a relatively small touch sensor may be difficult, and this increases the risk of revealing the hearing device or the remote control to others. Increasing the sensor area is often prohibited by the physical size of the devices. Furthermore, the distance measurement of capacitive proximity sensors is generally not very reliable due to non-controllable influences from e.g. ambient temperature and humidity, and unreliable user interface controls are notoriously known to cause user frustration. The control of differing device functions may be achieved by providing multiple touch sensors or proximity sensors, which however typically increases the above mentioned problems. Alternatively, temporal properties of signals from fewer sensors may be analysed to detect e.g. sequences of touches or gestures. Such sequences are, however, in general difficult to learn for many hearing-device wearers, and do also increase the risk of revelation.
There is thus still a need in the art for a control apparatus which allows easy, inconspicuous and reliable control of a hearing device with less dependence on the manual and mental skills of the wearer.